Understanding Youth Engagement: Rigor As Meaningful Youth Participation In Research and Planning Processes

Meaningful youth engagement is operationalized as a set of principles to ensure that youth participation translates to power in decision making. These principles include that youth involvement be transparent, resourced, accessible, voluntary, and mutually accountable. However, there is limited research on the processes promoting meaningful youth engagement.

The first research team will discuss their project on understanding youth participation in collaborative governance. The research team reviewed over 100 coordinated community plans (CCPs) from the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which require youth participation through youth action boards (YABs). They used the Ladder of Citizen Participation adapted for youth to assess the level of meaningful youth engagement across processes - ranging from fully youth-led to tokenizing or even manipulative. Little work has systematically studied the implementation of widespread youth participation in collaborative governance. This research gap leaves stakeholders unaware of whether the YAB mandate for YHDP programs moves beyond performative involvement of youth and into meaningful engagement. The presenters will invite attendees to discuss the following:

• We found most YHDP processes fell into a category of medium participation on the ladder - “adult-initiated, shared decisions with youth.” Is it (un)reasonable to expect that youth have stronger guiding roles in federal planning processes?
• What structural factors are necessary for processes to be at the highest ladder rungs of youth leadership?

The second research team will discuss the role of youth and adult partnerships and intergenerational exchange (IE) in a community intervention to promote collective efficacy for the prevention of violence. IE involves cross-age reciprocity, sharing of resources, and active engagement and communication between youth and adults. Prior research demonstrates that IE fosters trusting relationships among youth and adults and strengthens their ability to improve communities. IE can also demystify stereotypes of youth and adults, close generational gaps, and engender solidarity. However, aside from scheduling challenges and using a reciprocal approach, where power is shared, there is not very much known about how to foster IE. Current literature rarely examines how IE unfolds, including processes building trust, solidarity, and reciprocity. The presenters will attendees to discuss the following:

• We found several IE facilitators, including ensuring intentional intergenerational spaces to share lived experiences, foster intergroup dialogue, encourage youth engagement and promote action. What IE facilitators have you found?
• We found several IE barriers, including power imbalances, unequal participation, generational stereotypes, racialized differences and adult dominance, leading to low youth engagement. What IE barriers have you found?

Together, we will engage attendees in discussing the following questions in exploring key themes across both projects:

• What lessons can we learn from one another’s experiences working with youth and adults? What are some best practices for promoting meaningful partnerships?
• What are the possibilities and concerns that arise when youth-adult partnership is mandated, e.g., federal funding?

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how youth-adult partnerships can increase rigor of democratic planning and research processes, as well as key promising practices and challenges in putting these values into action.